Save Money Live Better
by LJ9
Summary: Modern AU oneshot: There's only one place to go when you need report covers and Pringles in the middle of the night.


**Disclaimer:** If you recognize it in here, assume that I don't own it. Even the title is Walmart's actual slogan right now.

* * *

The fluorescent lights overhead made everything look weird. That, and the fact that things tended to look weird anyway at two in the morning and a cup of coffee too many. But she was pretty sure it was mostly the lights, and that she could hear them buzzing.

Served her right for waiting so long to start working on her paper. She'd just really, _really_ not wanted to do it, but pretending the deadline didn't exist hadn't actually made it go away. Now she had less than seven—damn, six hours to finish her paper on Norway. Discovering that she was out of report covers had been a convenient excuse to take yet another break and go get one. And so she found herself in Walmart at 2:06 AM, with the buzzing lights slowly driving her to a new level of madness.

With a package of report covers, a can of Pringles, and a copy of _Skyfall_ in hand, she shuffled into the queue. It was the only one open, and she was torn between impatience at having to wait and appreciation at the opportunity to procrastinate still further. Up at the register, a pair of football players in letter jackets was arguing with each other and occasionally the cashier. It would probably be hilarious if she could hear it. Soon enough impatience won out, and she muttered, none too quietly, "Aw, get on wi' it."

She sounded a lot more like her dad when she was tired.

The guy in front of her peeked back over his shoulder at her when she said it, and then he did an actual honest-to-goodness double take. "What?" she demanded. "Have I got something on my face?"

"No, your face is good. You just sound like my dad?" It came out as a question, like she would know, and he turned pink a bit. Or maybe it was just the weird lighting. "Sorry. It's late."

That was as good an excuse as any. "Is he Scottish as well?"

"No. That's why it's strange. For him, not for you."

Despite his apparent confusion, he was well put together for 2 AM, in jeans and a rugby shirt and proper shoes, compared to her hoodie, flannel pajama bottoms, and flip-flops. He held a basket literally full of duct tape, and when he saw her notice it he said, simply, "Engineering."

"Due tomorrow?"

"Day after."

Her lower lip poked out. "Lucky. Mine's tomorrow—well, today."

"Oh, then by all means." He stood back and politely gestured for her to go in front of him, a spark of irony in his eyes, and she edged around him, chuckling.

"So," she said, leaning against a closed checkout, "your dad sounds Scottish but he's not from there."

"Yeah, it's a mystery."

"Maybe he just realized long ago that sounding Scottish is cool. We've got David Tennant, Karen Gillan, James McAvoy…"

"Sean Connery," he suggested. She held up the DVD in her hands, and he cocked an eyebrow. "That's the wrong Bond, though. Does the end remind you of home?"

"Oh, aye," she drawled broadly. "Especially the bits with all the gratuitous violence." He laughed, and in her normal voice she added, "That, and Daniel Craig is sexy."

"Really?"

"You don't think so?"

One shoulder raised in a shrug. "Can't say I do. He's cool, don't get me wrong, but I always wanted Q's job. Making all the gadgets that saved Bond's ass." Then his lips quirked up and her brain short-circuited.

Her mouth still said, "I would expect nothing less from an engineer," but her mind was picturing him with his shaggy hair even more ruffled up, his eyes sharp behind thick-framed glasses, wearing a cardigan that should have been hideous but somehow worked on him, all quick retorts to an impatient 007. Yeah, he'd make a good Q.

"What about you?" he asked. "You're no Miss Moneypenny, and you don't seem like the Bond girl type."

Damn right she wasn't a mooning secretary or a doomed femme fatale. "What are you trying to say? Am I not gorgeous enough to seduce Bond?" She struck a pose, one hip jutted out and a cool stare, utterly at odds with her disheveled ponytail; her expression dissolved into a smirk as she watched him try to come up with the safest answer to the question. His awkwardness was cute, but she had to put him out of his misery. She slumped against the checkout again. "I'd be a rubbish Bond girl, anyway."

"Why's that?"

"Too stubborn to die," she said with a grin. "I'm not easy to get rid of."

"I'm glad to hear it." He smiled, too, revealing crooked front teeth, and she fought back a shiver. At the way he said the words, not his teeth, though she liked his smile. "Anyway, you strike me more as an M. Getting things done, taking no BS—"

"Ordering people around?"

"Exactly." His smile grew into a grin, but whatever he was going to say next, which she was quite interested in hearing, was smothered by an outburst at the register ahead; the stockier of the football players had taken his shoe off, she could only imagine to look for loose change, and everyone around him was reacting violently to the smell. She crossed her arms over the university logo on her chest.

"I'm embarrassed to go to the same school as them," she muttered, averting her eyes.

"I think the good people of Walmart are probably used to weird student behavior in the middle of the night."

"Still. And you'd think they'd have more than one cashier working."

"Yeah." He looked up and down the rows of empty registers, then back to her. "But then I wouldn't have gotten to talk to you." And he smiled shyly, and she bit down on her lip as her stomach fluttered. "Maybe tomorrow—like actually tomorrow, not later-today tomorrow—we could—"

"Hey! Hiccup!" His hopeful half-smiled soured at the shout. One of the football players, a guy with long blond hair, skidded to a stop in front of them. "Hey, can I borrow five bucks? We're a little short for the beers."

"You could just get fewer beers, Tuff."

The blond leveled a deadpan stare at him, like the thought had never occurred to him and still didn't register. Hiccup (_Hiccup?_) sighed and pulled out his wallet, handing over five bills.

"Thanks, man!" the blond cried. "We owe you." He sprinted back to the cashier and his friend, who whooped and high-fived him.

"And those five dollars were never seen again," he muttered in resignation.

"You know that guy?" she asked incredulously. "And you still lent him money for alcohol?"

"Anything to get the line moving, right? Our projects won't finish themselves," he joked nervously. At the expression on her face he pleaded, "Look, please don't judge me. We're from the same town, we grew up together. He's not a bad guy, just…"

She thought of some of the decisions she'd made in the middle of the night before, and then she thought of some of her friends from back home, more than one of whom would have no problem hounding her for beer money, and she decided that she couldn't hold it against him. "A few cans short of a case?" she suggested.

"Yeah." He looked relieved.

After a moment, in which the football players finally completed their purchase and the line moved up and he rubbed the back of his neck, not looking at her, she said, "So, erm… What were you going to ask, before?" Then she peeked up at him, feeling all giddy again, and now not so sure that she could blame it on the exhaustion. It was funny; she normally had almost no verbal filter, but something about him, or the hour, or both, made her hesitate.

"Next customer, please!"

"That's you," he pointed out with a little smile, nodding over her shoulder at the register. She huffed and shoved her things onto the conveyor belt, then dug her debit card from her pocket and swiped it; behind her Hiccup was carefully stacking his rolls of duct tape on the conveyor. When she'd picked up her purchases she stood by the spinny bag thing, the handles of the shopping bag pushed up on her forearm and her hands stuffed in her hoodie pocket, and waited for him, for some reason. He kept glancing up at her, eyebrows drawn together in confusion, as the cashier rang up the duct tape and then bagged it all. _Might as well help_, she thought, grabbing one of the four bags.

"You didn't have to wait for me."

She shrugged. "Anything to put off finishing my paper."

"Glad to be of service, then."

They headed out to the parking lot, him asking what her paper was on; his car was sleek and black, one of those classic muscle cars she'd seen in films. It was definitely not the one she would have picked as his, and it made her knees go a little wibbly. She put her hands on her hips and said accusingly, "You have a very Bond car, Q."

"Yeah," he sighed, smiling at it proudly.

"But does it have rocket launchers?"

"Not yet." The light from the lamp above made him look older, more mysterious, but then he turned to her with a goofy grin. One minute he was dorky, the next he was gorgeous; it was giving her whiplash. "Wanna go for a ride?" he asked, voice dangerously low and pretty much forcing her to find innuendo in the question. He crossed his arms, leaned back against the car, and slid on the slick metal. He flailed frantically, staggering backward with wide eyes to regain his balance, and she hid a giggle behind her hand. Poor lamb.

"I would love a ride," she answered, matching his tone, and a smile appeared on his lips. "But if I don't get at least a B on this paper I'll probably be disowned."

"Been there. What about the day after tomorrow? Once my project is turned in?"

"Sure." She started backing away toward her car (alright, her roommate's car, and alright, the other girl didn't know she'd borrowed it and _alright_ maybe she didn't technically have a valid driving license in this country).

"Wait! Can I get your phone number? Or at least your name?"

"I'm M, remember? And you're Q. You can find me." That was very nicely done, she thought, and then she backed straight into the car hard enough to set the alarm screeching. She yelped and dropped her bag as she scrabbled for the keys, a blush flooding her face and his chuckle carrying across the lot.

When she got the bloody thing quiet and picked up her fallen purchases, she looked up to see him shaking his head, but it was no trick of the light that he was still smiling. With a tilt of his head he warned, "If you want me to go looking for trouble, you should know I always find it."

"I'm counting on it."

He didn't let her down.


End file.
